


with love,

by stupidgaytree



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, alternative title: I Didnt Realize I Cared This Much About Ned And Aubreys Friendship, spoilers for Episode 28, thats like. all this is idk how else to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-06 22:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19072030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidgaytree/pseuds/stupidgaytree
Summary: I don't want you to forgive me, Aubrey. I want you to hate me. I want you to focus all your hate on me. And that will free up all the love in that big, remarkable heart of yours for the rest of the world.





	with love,

_ With love, _

_ Edmund Kelly Chicane. _

 

Aubrey doesn't know what to do.

Ned's letter -- when she found it, there was a moment where she hated it. She finished reading it and ripped it in half, then stared down at the pieces as everything seemed to drain out of her except a hot, hard lump in her chest. Her hands still itched to destroy it, every atom in her body still rocketing towards some release, but instead she shoves it in her pocket and walks out of the Cryptonomica.

People stare at her in the street. She stopped bothering with her sunglasses pretty recently, mostly since she left them in Sylvain and kind of because  _ what's the point anymore?  _ She knows they don't see a human. Or if they do, not a safe one. One that's in some other group entirely.

While she walks through Kepler, she tries to shuffle through the advice she was given in grief counseling. None of it sticks in her head, really. She tries to repeat a few lines to herself like a mantra but they don't mean anything. In the forest, halfway to the Lodge, she has the sudden thought that expressing one's emotions is perfectly fine and healthy, and promptly turns around and kicks a tree hard.

"Fuck!" she shouts. "God!  _ God!  _ What the fuck! What the  _ fuck!"  _ Her voice breaks at the end and she lets it devolve to a sob, standing there in the trees with a bruised toe and tears covering her cheeks.

She doesn't  _ understand.  _ She had hated Ned, in that moment -- in that stupid  _ fucking  _ moment -- because he'd been a coward, because he had never told her what he did. She could hate him then because in her mind, he would continue being a coward, and he would leave, and he would just be gone and it would be fine. But then the idiot had chosen to be brave for once in his fucking life. She told him to leave.  _ She told him to leave. _

She takes the pieces of the letter from her pocket and fit them together at the tear.  _ I want you to hate me, _ it says. Aubrey almost wishes she could. It's so hard to hate someone who's dead. There's simply nowhere for it to go. The hate and the love go in circles until they mix themselves up into grief, and the grief is all there is.  _ I want you to hate me. I want you to focus all your hate on me. _

She doesn't bother saying hello to anyone when she gets to the Lodge -- no one is in the lobby waiting. She goes straight to her own room, where she shuts the door and locks it and tapes the letter back together.

_ I want you to hate me. _

Her room isn't even calm. Or, it is, but it feels tainted. A mixture of Aubrey's general mood and its proximity to Dani's room, the door of which has been shut and silent every time she's seen it in the last two days, makes it feel tight and dark and a little suffocating. The knot in her chest loosens somewhat, though, when Dr. Bonkers rouses from his bed and thumps his way to her feet. She scoops him up, all ten-or-eleven pounds of rabbit, and holds him close enough to press her face against his fur. He tucks his head against her neck and grinds his teeth to purr at her, and Aubrey manages a smile.

_ I don't want you to forgive me, Aubrey. I want you to hate me. I want you to focus all your hate on me. And that will free up all the love in that big, remarkable heart of yours for the rest of the world. _

"Buddy," Aubrey says, trying not to hate how small her voice is, "He'd forgive me, wouldn't he?" Her eyes are wet again. Dr. Bonkers doesn't seem to mind. "He wouldn't even think about it."

But he can't. He would, but he can't, because she told him to leave and he died thinking she hated him.

Dr. Bonkers nuzzles at her cheek. Aubrey swallows and sits down on her bed, careful not to jostle Dr. Bonkers.

"I don't know what to do," she tells him, "But there's nothing I can do, is there?"

He just looks up at her with his big pink eyes.

"Not for him," Aubrey says, and then, "I'm in a circle, bud. I don't know where to start."

Dr. Bonkers lays his head over her shoulder. She strokes his ears for a little bit until the room feels less like its narrowed down to just them. Carefully, she sets Dr. Bonkers down on the bed, and he reverts comfortably into a loaf while she pulls out scratch paper from one of her bags and finds a pencil.

She decides to write a letter.

**Author's Note:**

> my name is dylan stupidgaytree teamsweetflips and i am so fucking sad. i dont even know if this makes sense but here we are


End file.
